2514 Bhadrapada VI
2514 Bhadrapada VI (a.k.a. Rancent's World or New Earth) is a planet only recently settled by humans (about 800 years), but which is home to a variety of civilized and not-so-civilized species, and archaeology points to a rich civilized past hundreds of milennia old. Setting Notes Dr. Nidalli Rancent: the babau psionicist who pushed for the colonization of 2514 Bhadrapada VI, through a consortium of interested parties and funders from all nations (the New Earth Consortium, or NEC), all acting as independent individuals (no major government initially supported the enterprise). He called this world “New Earth”, and aimed to build a peaceful society where people from all geopolitical factions could live in harmony, with limited initial success. Of course, when word of Bhadrapada VI’s natural riches, metahuman resources and thriving psychic matrix reached the core worlds, all three major factions jumped headfirst into its colonization. Dr. Rancent died a couple decades after this colonization rush, under mysterious circumstances. Harmony Also known as Agrathon ("Harmony" in Eugeric). City founded by Dr. Rancent and the NEC in Bhadrapada VI, intended to be the model society of a new era. After his death, it swayed from its idealistic origins, but remains to this day a fully independent political entity, strongly guided by a policy of political neutrality, non-discrimination and free enterprise, leading it to be a major trade hub and a popular destination for corporations who seek a high level of independence from governments. One of the largest cities, possibly the largest, in Rancent’s World, and certainly the one with the greatest diversity in races and species. Although Dr. Rancent’s ideology is no longer official policy, his ideas remain highly influential in modern-day Harmony, and he as a historical figure has risen to semi-mythical stature. The NEC no longer exists as a commercial entity (its capital eventually getting broken up into varied business interests), but its public works make up the foundation of the city, and it has a spiritual successor in the non-profit Rancent Heritage Foundation. Harmonian Politics Currently, political power in Harmony is disputed among the following parties: -New Earth Party: One of the oldest parties in Bhadrapada VI, originally founded upon Dr. Rancent’s ideals of neutrality, tolerance and free enterprise, the NEP started out as a rather Centrist party. However, over time, it has leaned steadily over to the Individualist side of the spectrum, leaning mostly toward the Bureaucratic end of that tendency in opposition to the FF (especially after it absorbed former AF members). It tends to gather Bureaucratic-leaning upper-class voters and businesspeople, many people of Muranian and New Eugeron heritage, and conservative, “moral issues”-minded voters, especially Delemists. -Freedom Front: The main Anomist party, and a major force in modern Harmony. Its leadership and largest voter base is Libertarian-leaning, supported by business interests and the Libertarian commercial elite, but also popular among many middle-class voters. However, a significant faction within this party is Cooperativist-leaning, spearheaded by the Burdghata Caucus, and has growing popularity among progressive-minded lower classes (including those not of Burdwari faith). Gryzzik are strongly drawn to this party as well; kyrrztli citizens, less so. -Rising Together: Founded by Collectivist theorists, this party’s core ideology is centered around Collectivism, with a strong Paternalist base, although there are also several members toward the Cooperativist end. It has a strong following among descendants of Asheran immigrants, as well as lower-class folk on the Regulatist side, especially Unnamluarist conservatives (some of whom are neutral Regulatists). This party is also rather popular among non-human races, especially Eblians. -Agrathon First: Founded as a Harmonic nationalist party, AF was quickly seized by disenfranchised lower-class migrants from New Eugeron, who started turning it strongly toward Bureaucratic ideology. When upper-class Austolan migrants took control of it and focused it toward Muranian-style politics and even breaking neutrality to approach the PMU, the party lost much of its base, which fled to the NEP. Today, this small party survives mostly on the fundamentalist Delemist vote, and tends to ally with its old rivals, the NEP. -Harmony United: A nationalist and isolationist party, founded by disgruntled AF ex-members, unhappy with that party’s move toward the PMU. HU has a strong Core Centrist base, although many of its members lean Regulatist and Bureaucratic. It’s strongly focused on keeping Harmony neutral and isolated from international politics, with a somewhat xenophobic attitude toward foreigners and recent migrants. It’s tapped into the racist, human-centric vote, which is why non-human races are exceedingly rare in this party. Joint Defense Task Force (JDTF) A relatively new institution in the Harmony government, the JDTF is a project run jointly by the armed forces, police corporations, the Strategic Intelligence Agency and a few advanced research institutes of Harmony, in which they cooperate by lending personnel to this new organization, where the talents from all these institutions are put together to combat unprecedented and unorthodox threats to the city, that the police, military and other instances can't fight on their own. They have a number of divisions where members from all participating institutions work together, including: Strategic Analysis (nicknamed "the Farm"), where experts process information gathered from many different sources to figure out what's going on behind enemy lines and what to expect for the future; Peace Ops ("the Meat"), which help stabilize risky places and situations, both by physically defending unstable areas and by establishing ties to the local community; Strike Ops ("the Goons"), which intervene in situations where force is necessary, they're powerful and effective but have zero subtlety; and the Special Ops ("the Cleaners"), which act in situations that require more force than the Peace Ops employ but more subtlety than the Strike Ops have, mostly covert ops like espionage and "wetworks". There's also an administrative division and the High Command, which is neatly divided between military, police and Strategic Intelligence. Rancent's World Time Rancentian days are about 5% longer than Earth’s (7% longer than Iriond’s). Rancentian years have a bit over 342 (local) days, being about 98% of an Earth (or Iriond) year. The colonial (human) calendar has 7 “full” (48-day) sectors plus one extra hexad in the end, considered a short, “extra” month (7 days in leap years). The day has 21 (Iriond) hours and a few minutes. Kyrrztli divide the year into 9 38-day months, or 38 9-day weeks. Their day has 9 “watches” of about 168 real-world minutes, further subdivided into nine 18m40s “turns”, each of which is nine 2-minute (and change) “minutes”, then nine 13,8-second “dashes”, then nine 1,54-second “seconds”.Category:Planets